John Michel is a widely recognized expert in mobility, strategy and individual & organizational change. An accomplished business leader, John has successfully orchestrated several multi-billion dollar transformation efforts. He has dedicated over 26 years of service to America as a former United States Air Force General and former Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer and President of MV Global for MV Transportation, the largest privately owned transportation company in the United States. John’s work has been featured in a wide variety of articles & journals, including Harvard Business Review, Washington Post, National Geographic, CEO Magazine, Huffington Post, Investors Business Daily and Innovation Excellence.

World-renowned expert in Demand Responsive Technology for public transit systems and founder DemandTrans Solutions. Information technology professional with extensive entrepreneurial, research and consulting experience. Former tenured university professor with over 35 years of project management experience, Dr. Team has developed numerous industry leading scheduling, optimization and automated dispatching solutions for public transit.

Joe Dingman is the Chief Operating Officer of DemandTrans Solutions. After serving more than 20 years in the US Air Force, Joe became the architect, operations, and business development lead for MV Transportation’s Patriot Express – the first scalable, multi-million dollar on-demand ground transportation system for the Department of Veteran Affairs. While in the Air Force, he served in multiple senior leadership positions to include the Air Force senior advisor to the Immediate Office of the Secretary of Defense and commanded a worldwide mobility airlift squadron. Joe is a graduate from the US Air Force Academy and holds Master’s degrees from Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy as a McConn scholar and Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. Joe is active in his local community in multiple capacities and is the co-founder of the Department of Defense Corporate Coalition.

Professor Nigel Wilson, director of the MIT Transit Research Program, has more than 30 years experience dealing with operations, management and planning issues associated with transit systems worldwide. His research and teaching focus on urban public transportation, including topics related to the operation, analysis, planning and management of transit systems. Specific research activities he has directed include using automated data systems to improve planning and operations, workforce planning in the transit industry, short-range transit planning methods, the role of private operators in public transportation and the potential for computers and communication systems to improve the performance of transit systems. During two leaves from MIT, he worked directly in three large transit agencies, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (1985-86), London Transport (1992-93) and Metro Transit (2008-2009) and has also consulted to a number of other North American transit authorities. Additional information about Professor Wilson can be found on MIT’s Civil and Environmental Engineering website.

At DemandTrans, Charlotte works with clients to identify how performance measures used for decision making reflect (1) actual and perceived decision variable values and (2) transportation user and operator objectives in order to quantify the real benefits of infrastructure to individuals and communities. These tools and performance measures bridge shared mobility and travel behavior, specifically behavior related to “microtransit” use. Charlotte develops simulation and analysis tools to address decision-making problems for both travelers and transportation operators, employing network analysis, optimization and discrete choice modeling for strategic, tactical and operations planning. Charlotte holds a BS in Civil Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and MS/PhD degrees in Transportation Systems from Northwestern University.

Niels Tvilling Larsen is a world-renowned expert in the development and management of flexible transit. As the chief architect behind the word’s first large-scale national flexible transit platform, FlexDenmark, he has developed a system that reliable delivers over 20,000 rides a day utilizing over 500 different service providers to a nation of over 5,000,000 people.

A transport and policy specialist that has worked for decades in creating innovative and fully integrated transport solutions that accommodate both non-dedicated vehicles for paratransit and DRT in lower density areas as well as public transit assets for high density routes. Niels Tvilling Larsen possesses advanced degrees in Structureeconomic and Politics as well as a Master of Information Technology and Industrial IT, both from Aalborg University.

At DemandTrans, Todd is the Lead System Architect for MobilityDR. He has over 19 years’ experience as a full-stack developer in SOA, Web and Mobile applications. Todd specializes in developing constraint-based scheduling solutions for mission-critical work-force management and vehicle scheduling applications. He works with clients to help transform their service plan needs into real-life DRT schedules. Todd holds a degree in Finance and IT from Marquette University.

Mr. Hardt has 18 years of experience in information technology and specializes in application development as well as business and requirements analysis.
Mr. Hardt played a major role in the design and implementation of the Denver RTD’s Call-n-Ride application, as well as DemandTrans’s web survey products for the American Hospital Association. He has also developed major extensions for DemandTrans’s scheduling applications for the conferencing industry.
Before joining DemandTrans, Mr. Hardt worked for Accenture on large Oracle projects in the financial industry. Mr. Hardt’s technical expertise includes Java, Javascript, Oracle PL/SQL, C#, and ASP.Net, as well as Oracle and SQL Server database administration and data warehousing.
Mr. Hardt holds a B.S. from Northwestern University in Environmental Engineering and an M.S. from Stanford University in Civil/Environmental Engineering.

Eric was a visiting professor at the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Aalto University in Espoo, Finland. Was adjunct faculty at the University of Pennsylvania and taught short courses at several universities around the world. He is the author of Better Public Transit Systems: Analyzing Investments and Performance, 2nd Ed, and co-author of Introduction to Sustainable Transportation. Was assistant director for advanced technologies and innovative practices at the National Transit Institute, responsible for development of continuing education courses, including about ITS. Was consultant or Team Leader in a variety of projects in several countries. He recently participated in a research project that first aimed to understand and now to find ways to improve informal public transport in the cities of sub-Saharan Africa together with the staff of The African Centre of Excellence for Studies in public and Non-motorized Transport (ACET) at the University of Cape Town. Eric has a BSME and MSME in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Washington and a PhD in Systems Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.

Joe Scavelli graduated with highest honors from Illinois State University with a Bachelor’s degree in Finance and Accounting. At the start of his career, Joe worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Chicago where he specialized in financial statement audits of multi-billion-dollar financial services clients. Joe later moved to Dallas where he worked as a financial analyst and account manager at a private lending company. There, he managed and helped grow a portfolio of small businesses with a combined value of over 12 million dollars. Outside of his professional life, Joe enjoys spending time with family and friends, practicing martial arts, and is an avid sports fan.

Holly Michel is an award-winning artist who enjoys working with various mediums to communicate the value of DemandTrans varied products and services. She is responsible for branding, marketing, and design and works closely with customers and constituents to create relevant product collateral. Holly is also a classically trained Acupuncturist, kick-boxing instructor and private pilot who enjoys spending time with family and friends.

VETaxi Program Creator, Robert DeLucia Sr., a Vietnam veteran who served in the U.S. Army as an MP.  Robert has a long and successful track record in the transportation service industry. Starting his first business over 30 years ago in the Pittsburgh area and currently he is the founder of five companies – including VETaxi.

Robert dedicates much time and energy to veteran’s affairs and Operation Rising Star for the past 4 years.  Where he believes in Veteran opportunities in Transportation are key to quality service.

Mr. DeLucia is an innovator and Vetrepreneur, starting Star Transportation Group, which operates multiple transportation companies around the greater Pittsburgh area. Classy Cab,  is an upscale taxi service located in the greater Pennsylvania area; Cranberry Taxi located in Butler County; VETaxi (the only 100% wheelchair accessible, CNG and Veteran Operated service in the USA  which includes Tesla Electric Vehicles), operates in Greater Pittsburgh Area; AirStar which operates for ACCESS transportation in Pittsburgh and Star Limousines which operates throughout the Pittsburgh Area and multiple counties.

In 2010, Mr. DeLucia was nominated for “Veteran Entrepreneur of the Year” by the National Veteran-Owned Business Association (NaVOBA). His accomplishments working with veterans have been highlighted in Vetrepreneur Magazine. “By having a business, I challenge myself on a daily basis and I like to help motivate other Veterans to do their best and have a successful career.”

Sonal has twenty years of extensive and diverse experience in accounting & finance roles. Sonal began his career with PriceWaterhouseCoopers and then moved into the start-up world during the high-tech boom of the late 1990’s. Sonal has balanced and enhanced his entrepreneurial experience through internal audit roles with a Fortune 500 company (Macy’s) and both for profit and not for profit international organizations. While Sonal is a “numbers guy”, he has a strong interest in understanding operations and business strategy, allowing him to speak to the numbers in a non-technical way. The controller at a Fortune 500 company referred to him as an auditor that “understands” – a testament to his ability to think outside of the check boxes and apply intelligent reasoning to the “rules”.

Sonal was instrumental in maintaining financial stability and profitability as the head of accounting and finance for a highly successful restaurant group in the Washington D.C. metro area. He helped the business grow from annual revenues of $13M to $50M in his 4 years with the company.

Sonal received his Bachelor of Science from Tufts University and his MBA from Boston University. When he is not “crunching numbers” or studying leadership and business strategy, Sonal can often be found passionately cooking for his family and friends.

Perry Smith graduated from Lehigh University in 1987 with a BA in History and received an MA in Communications from New York University in 1992.

A lifelong entrepreneur and avid learner, Smith has created, operated and scaled a wide variety of successful hospitality and retail businesses including Polly Esther’s and Culture Club entertainment venues as well as multiple retail locations of the popular Right-On Futon in Chicago, IL. Most recently he founded, built and scaled the Matchbox Food Group which currently has 15 units in California, Maryland, Texas, Virginia, and Washington, DC. In 2016, Smith founded The Avalon Institute business consulting and advisory with USAF General John E. Michel (RET).

Madonna is a respected and established personality in the disability community who works with disability organizations, leaders and businesses around the United States. She has a Bachelors Degree in Homeland Security. She works for Pride Mobility Products as a Consumer Advocate as well as Star Transportation Group (VETaxi).

Madonna has extensive experience in advertising, media, public relations and public policy. She is CEO & President of Loops Media Group and Madonna Long Consulting LLC, which both companies specializing in the disability community and market.

Madonna is also the Founder of AccessMapping, a technology platform designed to aggregate business accessibility, working with businesses and leading disability groups around the country to help progress issues that affect people with disabilities. Madonna works with our nation’s leaders, Senators, Congressional Leaders and their staff in Washington DC as well as the Presidents administration on issues that concern People with Disabilities.

Madonna has worked on transportation issues concerning the needs of people with disabilities for over six years. She has helped communities in Washington DC, New York City and other cities across our nation find innovative ways to mitigate the shortage of accessible transportation options.